


Cutting the strings

by ShadowSelene (Shadowdianne)



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-29
Updated: 2019-08-29
Packaged: 2020-09-29 14:28:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20437556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowdianne/pseuds/ShadowSelene
Summary: 'Stripped Bare' by Alyson Stoner for SQ please . Asked by emettkaysworld via tumblr“You brought me back.” The words, whispered against her temple made her dig her nails onto her palms; anger rising within her; the colder burn of what she was used to making her shiver.“I’m not asking you that.”“I know.”





	Cutting the strings

**Author's Note:**

> I remember being pumped for the Dark Swan arc and I have never made it a secret that I was fangirling before the damned 5th season happened. However, while I never liked the route of splitting the queen from a narrative standpoint I was also very curious and very interested on seeing what or how Regina would be without a side of herself. Especially considering how powerful that side was. To be honest while I think Lana did an amazing job as always and you are kinda limited to the time one has on prewritten scenes I always felt that they could have focused a little bit better on the fact that there’s something missing on Regina while the split is happening. Soooo, I guess this is one of many fixitfics I will ever write about that xd  
Thanks twin, for the prompt <3 Hope you are doing ok. I need to send you some love over WhatsApp…   
Set on: 6x04 with a side of s5 finale  
Pre-relationship.

_“I need you to promise me you’ll do the same thing if it comes to that.”_

_“I won’t let it come to that.”_

_“Promise.”_

Regina stared as Emma glanced away; nervousness rolling off her as the sound of the waves crashing against the docks raised and fell above their words. Eyelids dropping, irises protesting against the twinkling water, the brunette bit down on her bottom lip as she kept glancing at the blonde, at the way Emma swallowed once, twice, before looking back at her. Shoulders locked, Emma’s arms seemed fragile as she hugged her midsection, the decision of a promise the older woman knew couldn’t be easy, weighing her down.

She could remember how she had felt the moment Emma had asked her to do the same; to consider blood and loss over optimism. The same kind of one that felt as if everyone around them shared in an infectious cloud. There were no other possibilities, however, and she knew as much as the scent of the sea closed around her throat, foam almost hitting Emma’s boots while the blonde changed positions, magic crackling in silver and white.

There had been a second of hesitation back at the roof, with the realization that she could destroy what she had come to despise; nerves flooding her system as the death that had come to be a second skin to her - ropes robbing her of the ability to speak, to decide aside from the persona she had once used with pride- stuck to the back of her throat. She had remembered Emma’s pain that night; the split second in where the other woman had said that she would now be the Dark One; no need to offer a salvation to someone who did not want it anymore. She had felt helpless back in Camelot, weak, but she had been able to see, for a split second, less than a moment, the logic behind Emma’s words. Even if those hadn’t been for her.

She had felt attached to a second part of herself with hot iron and prayers whispered out of her mother’s lips. Future pages written in an ink stolen to the dreams the woman who had raised her had. She had followed the steps that had been pointed at her -even when she hadn’t wanted to.

Which had been the reason why, when presented with the opportunity, she had taken it. No matter the price she had glimpsed she would need to take. Now, standing too far from Emma, she thought on those moments once more, in the way Emma had looked at her. She would be there, she had promised she would, but she had looked away at the last possible second, magic already coursing through her and pain burning everything else away.

Lowering her head, chin tucked, Regina let her eyelids fall, breathing into the sea’s wind as the cracking sound of the docks told her, way before than she let her eyes open once more, that Emma had moved closer.

And she had and so she stood a few meters away; cautionary space between them still. Regina couldn’t quite remember when that had begun to happen. There was not a moment in where she could remember the change. Only that it had happened.

Green eyes shining, the blonde had her head titled as she eyed her, hair battling against the wind, gold halo coloring the air around her hair where her dirty white magic met the air.

It was maybe because of that, because of the painful realization that she felt lost and trapped in something she had walked in hoping for redemption and freedom, because of the way Emma kept eyeing her, silent but stubborn in the way her lips were set in a fine line, that Regina fell her own lips part, words already escaping her throat before she was able to swallow them once more.

What good a half-made admission would make?

“I shouldn’t have taken it.”

Emma blinked, posture changing, shoulders unlocking as she let arms fall limp at her sides, fingers brushing against the faux leather of her jacket. Everything in her felt too sharp and Regina blinked away in pain as she took into the way her lungs seemed to already be filled despise her need to breathe.

She had changed that night. She had transformed perhaps, cut away from the most acerbic side of her personality. She had thought it to be a good exchange at the very beginning; drunk into the idea of her not needing to listen to a voice she had felts hers but not anymore. Now she realized that she missed it; missed the edge the Queen gave her even if the rage felt as a forever empty void, needed to be filled. A kind of hunger that hadn’t been hers back when she had been a child. Because it hadn’t been hers; it had never been about her. She had merely picked the mantle, covering her wounds with it while hoping for them to not get infested.

Raw and open, she almost recoiled as Emma looked at her own left hand, at her fingers, before she took yet another step towards her; the scent of the sea dimming as the magic washed over her, surrounding Regina’s ankles, waist, chest, before it dissolved in a myriad of particles; the mental ropes around her chest disappearing completely as she took a deep breath. The kind of one that made her feel dizzy but awake.

“That’s not what we should focus on.”

Emma’s words were true: Regina knew it. This was not the moment for her to have self-doubts regarding something that couldn’t be fixed, not anymore. Yet, anxiousness was already growling at the back of her head, replaying thousands of moments in where there had not been anything else but darkness: a blind clarity on the way she had burned.

“But I shouldn’t have.”

She wasn’t entirely sure where the self-deprecation was coming from, or the way she felt younger as well as older as she truly was. There were other voices within her, voices she had been able to pretend they weren’t there while the Queen roared: the naïve version of herself, the impetuous side of her, the meek, the tender side of her. Not the ones drenched in the Queen’s colors but on hers.

Weren’t those merely party tricks of someone with a title that didn’t fit anymore?

She didn’t move when Emma closed the few inches that had still been separating them. There was no point on such a thing after all: she craved it in the same way she wished for everything, for every string that kept her moving, to disappear. Not strong enough to say a thing, she let the blonde’s arms envelop her in a quick –far too quick- hug. The kind of one that made her want to disappear into.

“You brought me back.” The words, whispered against her temple made her dig her nails onto her palms; anger rising within her; the colder burn of what she was used to making her shiver.

“I’m not asking you that.”

“I know.”

Emma moved away just as Regina let her head rise, the hairs at the nape of her neck standing as she watched at the blonde’s determined face, at the way the cupid’s bow was shaded thanks to some cheeky sunrays that jumped over the surface of the water a few feet away. There was a stretched moment there, another missed opportunity Regina didn’t know how to read or if she ever had been able to. Still open, still raw and hurting, she sighed again and let the younger woman nod twice before taking a final step back. The one that made her scream inside, hoping for a question and an answer she was not going to take or give.

“If it comes to it I’ll be there.” Emma’s ghost-like touch still warmed her despite them not being in close proximity any longer and Regina drowned on the memory of it as she listened to the blonde. “But I’ll be sure it doesn’t.”

There could be many things there, many words Regina could have said. She didn’t.

The Queen had trapped her. That much was true.

But she had also freed her and so, as she now stood at the very limit of the precipice, she realized she couldn’t quite fall. Not any longer.


End file.
